Erik Erikson

Hope is both the earliest and the most indispensable virtue inherent in the state of being alive. If life is to be sustained hope must remain, even where confidence is wounded, trust impaired. --Erik Erikson

The Law That Marries All Things - Wendell Berry

The cloud is free only
to go with the wind.

The rain is free only in falling.

The water is free only
in its gathering together,

in its downward courses,
in its rising into the air.

In law is rest
if you love the law,
if you enter singing into it
as water in its descent.

SCORE

SCORE for LIFE
Self-discipline
Concentration
Optimism
Relaxation
Enjoyment

Living
In
FulL
Everymoment

Reading from Agenda for a New Economy

Strong caring families and communities are not only the key to our happiness and physical health; their emotional support and simulation facilitate the maturing of our emotional and moral consciousness. They are therefore essential to the realization of our humanity and to the realization of true democracy, a real-wealth economy, and the world of our shared human dream.

Rabbi Michael Lerner
The great spiritual-religious wisdom traditions of the world have all taught some variant of this message: The deepest human pleasures come from living in a world based on justice, peace, love, generosity, kindness, and celebration of the universe and service to the ultimate moral law of the universe (whether learned through revelation or through reason).

David Myers "What is the good life?"
big houses and broken homes, high incomes and low morale, secured rights and diminished civility. We were excelling at making a living but too often failing at making a life. We celebrated our prosperity but yearned for purpose. We cherished our freedoms but longed for connection. In an age of plenty, we were feeling spiritual hunger. These facts of life lead us to a startling conclusion: Our becoming better off materially has not made us better off psychologically.

Puanani Burgress tells the story of a Native Hawaiian navigator who learned and practiced the ancient Polynesian art of navigating to previously unvisited islands thousands of miles beyond the horizon.

Nainoa Thompson was taught by the master navigator from the Satawal Island in Micronesia, Mau Pialug, to navigate without instruments, using his native wayfinding skills to guide the Hawaiian double-hulled canoe Hokele'a on a Hawaii-Tahiti voyage of more than 2,200 miles.

As part of Nainoa's training process, Mau would take him to a lookout on O'ahu, where he could see the islands of Moloka'i, Maui and Lana'i. Mau would tell him,"Look beyond the horizon, so that you can see the island you are going to. Especially because you have never been there before, you have to see that island in your mind, or else you can never get there."

That ability- no, courage - to see something you have never seen before is an important part of navigating to the Earth Community that we all long for. Our ability to see it, describe it, share that vision is critical to making it real.

Like the navigators of the Pacific Ocean, the navigators of the Great Turning will require the gifts of mind as well as the heart of someone with the qualities of humility, leadership, courage, and kindness. When we think the journey is hard and impossible, I remember that we made the journey then and now.

Excerpt from No Time to Lose

When the Mormons originally settled in Utah, their first crops were being devastated by locusts. When they prayed for help, thousands of seagulls appeared and gobbled up all the locusts; seagull bodhisattvas came to the rescue of people who were about to starve.

swami rama

Know Yourself
-------------------------
"The simple method to enlightenment is to first know yourself."
-------------------------
"There is only one real book to study and learn from—the greatest of all books—and that is the very manuscript that you, yourself, are."
-------------------------
"Above all else, remember this one thing:It is easy to meet that Infinity within you—to attain that awareness, you just have to be silent and quiet."
-------------------------
"The best and deepest of the teachingsis not communicated throughbooks, speech or actions, but through silence.That special teaching is understood only when you are silent."
-------------------------
"I am telling you to face this reality: the path to enlightenment and unfoldmentis not really so austere, abstruse, or difficult—it’s actually very easy.The easiest way to make progress is just to “know thyself”—to accept and understand yourself on all levels."
-------------------------
"There have been many scholarly commentaries on the Yoga Sutras, but all the commentaries miss something very practical. Such commentaries can only satisfy the intellect, but do not actually help you beyond that: 'yogash chitta vritti narodha'—yoga is the control of the 'modifications' of the mind. Narodha means control; there is no other English word for it. Control doesn't mean suppression, but channeling or regulating."
-------------------------
"All sadhanas (spiritual practices), techniques, and disciplines are actually means to train the mind. And the foremost part of the trainingis to make the mind aware that Reality lies beyond itself."
-------------------------
"Meditate, meditate, meditate. That's my message to you. I am only a man messenger, a child of the Himalayan sages. I don't claim any more than that. I speak the wisdom which was sprinkled on me in my childhood."
"I want you to be happy. But remember this: happiness is never borrowed, never bought, never earned; it's already within you. If you want to be happy go inside, deep down, in the inner chamber of your being and there you'll find happiness lies in a state of silence. Learn to practice that everyday."
-------------------------
"There was once a swami who used toteach students every day.One of the students listened attentivelyand heard the swami speaking about vairagya,the philosophy of non-attachment,and the student took off for a forest dwellingand there, he was enlightened.
"After dwelling there for twelve years,he wondered what had happenedand what had been the fate of his friends,with whom he used to learn.
"So he returned to that place, andeveryone was still sitting there exactly like before,and the swami was still lecturing.What a waste of time!
"The point is that you don’t need much external information;you already have true knowledge within.You need to learn how to apply the knowledge that you have.
"You are taught: 'Be good, be nice, be gentle, be loving.'You have all been taught that,but you should learnto practice, understand, and to apply that knowledge to yourself.
"You need to understand how you function,and the process that results in your actions."
—Swami Rama

Don Juan

Only as a spiritual warrior can one withstand the path of knowledge. A warrior cannot complain or regret anything. His life is an endless challenge and challenges cannot possibly be good or bad. Challenges are simply challenges. The basic difference between an ordinary man and a warrior is that a warrior takes everything as a challenge, while an ordinary man takes everything as a blessing or a curse.

Benjamin Franklin

Our limited perspective, our hopes and fears become our measure of life, and when circumstances don't fit our ideas, they come our difficulties.

Preemble

Grant that I may be given appropriate difficulties and sufferings on this journey so that my heart may be truly awakened and my practice of liberation and universal compassion may be truly fulfilled.

Quotes

The mind creates the abyss, and the heart crosses it. - Sri Nisargadatta


"All you can teach is understanding. The rest comes on its own."

"Truth is not a reward for good behaviour, nor a prize for passing some tests. It cannot be brought about. It is the primary, the unborn, the ancient source of all that is. You are eligible because you are. You need not merit truth. It is your own. Just stop running away by running after. Stand still, be quiet ." - Interview with Sri Nisargdatta Maharaj

"My advice to you is very simple – just remember yourself, ‘I am’, it is enough to heal your mind and take you beyond, just have some trust. I don’t mislead you. Why should I? Do I want anything from you? I wish you well – such is my nature. Why should I mislead you? Common sense too will tell you that to fulfill a desire you must keep your mind on it. If you want to know your true nature, you must have yourself in mind all the time, until the secret of your being stands revealed [26]." - I Am That

"There is only life, there is nobody who lives a life."

"A quiet mind is all you need. All else will happen rightly, once your mind is quiet. As the sun on rising makes the world active, so does self-awareness affect changes in the mind. In the light of calm and steady self-awareness inner energies wake up and work miracles without effort on your part."

"There is nothing to practice. To know yourself, be yourself. To be yourself, stop imagining yourself to be this or that. Just be. Let your true nature emerge. Don't disturb your mind with seeking."

"When I see I am nothing, that is wisdom. When I see I am everything, that is love. My life is a movement between these two."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Famous Yogi

Many dedicated individuals have influenced the practice of yoga, and spread awareness of yoga throughout the world. Centuries ago, such individuals included Meera from the Bhakti tradition, Shankaracharya from the Jnana Yoga tradition, Patanjali, who formalized the system of Raja Yoga, are just a few examples.
In the late 1800s, Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, a Bhakti Yogi, brought about a rebirth of yoga in India. A devotee of Mother Kali and a teacher of Advaita Vedanta, he preached that “all religions lead to the same goal.”
The noted Indian author Sri Aurobindo translated and interpreted Yogic scriptures, such as the Upanishads and Bhagavad-Gita. His epic poem Savitri is a treasure of Hindu Yogic literature, among the longest poems ever written in English. He also founded Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry, which continues to propagate the practice of Integral Yoga, which is Aurobindo’s synthesis of the four main Yogas (Karma, Jnana, Bhakti and Raja).
Other Indian yogis who inspired their countrymen include Swami Rama Tirtha, and Swami Sivananda who authored over 300 books on yoga and spirituality.
Gopi Krishna was a Kashmiri office worker and spiritual seeker who wrote best-selling autobiographical accounts of his spiritual experiences. During the early twentieth century, many yogis travelled to the west to spread knowledge of Yoga.
Swami Vivekananda, Ramakrishna’s disciple, is well known for introducing Yoga philosophy to many in the west, as well as reinvigorating Hinduism in a modern setting during India’s freedom struggle.
Swami Sivananda (1887-1963), founder of the Divine Life Society lived most of his life in Rishikesh, India. He wrote an impressive 300 books on various aspects of Yoga, religions, philosophy, spirituality, Hinduism, moral ethics, hygiene and health. He was a pioneering Yogi in bringing Yoga to the west and throughout the world. He was clear, simple and precise in all his teachings. His motto being: “Serve. Love. Give. Meditate. Purify. Realise.”
Paramahansa Yogananda (1893-1952), a practitioner of Kriya Yoga, taught Yoga as the binding force that reconciled Hinduism and Christianity. Yogananda founded the Self-Realization Fellowship in Los Angeles, in 1925. His book Autobiography of a Yogi continues to be one of the best-selling books on yoga.
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada popularised Bhakti Yoga for Krishna in many countries through his movement, the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, (popularly known as the Hare Krishna movement) which he founded in 1966. His followers, known for enthusiastic chanting in public places, brought Bhakti Yoga to the attention of many westerners.
In 1955, the socio-spiritual organization Ananda Marga (the path of bliss) was founded by P.R. Sarkar also known as Shrii Shrii Anandamurti. Based on tantric yoga, his teaching emphasizes social service in the context of a political, economic and cultural theory; or “self-realization and service to all.”
Also during this period, many yogis brought greater awareness of Hatha yoga to the west. Some of these individuals include students of Sri Tirumalai Krishnamacharya, who taught at Mysore Palace from 1924 until his death in 1989; these students include Sri K. Pattabhi Jois, B.K.S. Iyengar, Indra Devi and Krishnamacharya’s son T.K.V. Desikachar.
About the same time, the Beatles’ interest in Transcendental Meditation served to make a celebrity of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.